Demons, devils, fiends and filler

D&D invented demons, devils and daemons to fill spaces in the alignment grid. While the conflict between the lawful devils and the chaotic fiends did make for an interesting spectacle, the daemons (or yugoloths in later editions) were pretty boring since their entire shtick was being mercenaries for the other two. The distinction was also undermined by the demons and devils lacking any kind of unifying aesthetic or motif. In fact, all three were created using the same random number tables in Appendix D.

Demons in Mongoose Publishing

In 3.x/d20/OGL, demons or "fiends" were divided into a number of subtypes or races such as "demons" and "devils." In the original Dungeons & Dragons setting these were called baatezu and tanar'ri, but of course those names are closed content. Not to be deterred, some publishers developed substitutes. Mongoose Publishing in particular published numerous books dealing with demons. These weren't consistent with one another due to different writers, but they build on recurring ideas.


Encyclopaedia Arcane: Demonology (reprinted and updated in Encyclopaedia Arcane Compendium, Volume I) introduced the concept of demonic broods, families of demons descended from demonic royalty and named for their founder. These included the baate, tanar and tzaretch (the latter in a web enhancement). The baate and tanar are clearly substitute names for the demons and devils from the SRD.

The Slayer's Guide to Demons further stipulates that the suffix "ka" is appended to brood names, since the name consists of the name of their founder and the "ka" suffix means brood. Therefore, the tanar'ka are literally the brood of Tanar, the insectile van'g'ka are the brood of Van'g, the shadowy jar'taska'ka are the brood of Jar'taska, and the disembodied nuyul'ka are the brood of Nuyul. (I prefer to write the names as vang'ka and jartas'ka because the excessive apostrophes are unnecessary and caca is Spanish for "excrement".)

The Book of the Planes, The Book of Hell, The Planes: Zahhak, and The Planes: Feuerring all went on to explore parts of the lower planes. The Book of the Planes introduced a generic lower plane named Infernum. Initially it referred to the lower planes generally, but when expanded on in The Book of Hell it became the first layer of the lower planes from which the other lower planes were accessible. The Book of Hell introduced the concept of "noble devils," houses, corruption points, "iliaster" harvested from the damned, etc. The Planes: Feuerring explored some of the geography of Infernum, particularly the titular "ring of fire" separating it from other planes. The Planes: Zahhak detailed a minor lower plane ruled by despair (named for a dragon in Persian myth).

All of this musing on demons reached its peak in the custom campaign setting Infernum. Infernum introduced demons as player characters, recycling many concepts introduced in the prior books like breeds, houses, iliaster, etc. These were spread across three volumes: Book of the Damned, Book of the Tormentor, and Book of the Conqueror. The setting was based very closely on Dante's Inferno, in that it aimed to depict the Hell of Christian mythology rather than generic fantasy.

A brief guide to mind flayer substitutes

So Mind Flayers are considered product identity by Wizards of the Coast and third-party publishers cannot mention them. Months ago I posted a brief post about how my setting would replace them with several races that worship the big Cthulhu himself, but in this post I would like to discuss substitutes in an out-of-character fashion.

Fantasy physics and real world biology

I have written before that I have a preference for pre-modern science in my fantasy settings, mostly because very few settings do aside from Exalted and RuneQuest. My homebrew in progress has an animistic cosmology, morally ambiguous law/chaos conflict, spontaneous generation, four humors, diseases caused by evil spirits, and no binary distinction between magic and mundane skillsets. In contrast, D&D and its derivatives are the poster child for gratuitous biology explanations.

Sources for dream-related monsters

Dream-related monsters are a favorite of mine.

• Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie by Onyx Path Publishing features the dreamfolk, dreamwrack and dreamwraith monsters.
• Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary by Atlas Games features the dreamkind family of monsters. 
• The Mind Unveiled by Dreamscarred Press features the Qael family of monsters.
• Dream-related monsters are probably found in many other bestiaries, such as Nightmares & Dreams Creature Collection by Samurai Sheepdog or Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary by Paizo Inc.

I will be writing more about dream monsters when I discuss the plane of dreams in the future...

Addendum: artistic inspirations:

• http://www.yerkaland.com/language/en/
• https://www.deviantart.com/claudiobergamin/art/H-P-Lovecraft-s-Silver-Key-334969114
• http://rayagolden.blogspot.com/2009/05/been-while.html
• https://www.deviantart.com/valentina-remenar/art/D-R-E-A-M-S-398472986
• https://hobbismo.com.br/sonhos-e-pesadelos-no-rpg/world_of_dreams_by_frankhorlw-d5yjju7/

Children of Chaos

The slaad are an iconic element of Dungeons & Dragons, but unfortunately they are closed content. Not to be discouraged, publishers have devised multiple substitutes.

Reinventing the Plane of Air

This post collects some random ideas I had in the past for reinventing the plane of air. These are unfinished notes right now, but I hope anyone who reads this can be inspired to have adventures on the plane of air, or as I like to call it: "Cloud Cuckoo Land."

A brief list of OGL serpentfolk

Over the course of my studies I have encountered a variety of serpentfolk in d20 3pp. Here is just a list, by no means exhaustive:

• Samat (Nyambe: African Adventures)
• Illujan: Lord, Spawn (Fiery Dragon Counter Collection Gold)
• Ophiduan: Anguineum, Hominis, Semiferum (The Iconic Bestiary: Classics of Fantasy)
• Sli'ess (Slavelords of Cydonia)
• Ssanu (Arcanis)
• Naga (Rokugan)
• Serpentfolk, Nagaji, Vishkanya (Pathfinder)
• Asaatth, High/Low Gorgon, Ophidic Giant, Savant Hydra, Heartclutch devil (Scarred Lands)
• Bleak Mamba (Lethal Lexicon)
• Inphidian (Tome of Horrors)
• Scalefolk (Monster Encyclopaedia)
• Sevren, Sesheck (Bleeding Edge Adventure #2: Beyond the Towers)
• Lernaeati (Monsters of Porphyra)
• Penitents (Slayer’s Guide to Yuan-ti)

Karathis Illujan links

• http://fierydragon.com/downloads/ccgold_illujan_we.pdf
• http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?32348-Karathis-setting
• http://www.fierydragon.com/
• http://karathis.2xs.de/

History of gorgons: the myth of medusa

The gorgons of Greek myth underwent changes over time. Gorgons were initially depicted as terrifying monsters with wings, claws, tusks and serpents for hair (including beards); at one point Medusa was depicted as a centaur. Their name literally translates to "terrifying." Oddly enough, their image was used in protective amulets and they were considered protectors of oracles. The logic appears to go that the best defense against evil is something equally terrifying.

Fauns versus Satyrs

Although originally separate beings from separate cultures, fauns and satyrs were conflated and syncretized by the Roman Empire. Nowadays some self-styled experts try to claim that they should be treated separately when writing fantasy fiction, but I find this unnecessary. That said, I do think they could be given more diversity within fiction.

Tribes of the centaurs, part 1: The Ixionides

In Greek mythology, centaurs were much more diverse than modern writers give them credit for. This will be the first in a series of articles exploring the diversity of centaurs in mythology and how this may be recycled for gaming purposes. The myth of the centaurs, like most Greek myths, has many variants. This post will explore one, specifically their origin.

The centaur problem

What I call the "centaur problem," by analogy with the mermaid problem, refers to the anatomical difficulties brought up by centaur anatomy. There is a vast disparity between human hips and equine shoulders, and typical depictions of the centaur ignore the plethora of problems brought up by the junction between the centaur's human and equine halves. In this post, I will briefly explore the anatomy of centaurs in art and myth, the anatomical difficulties of the junction, and an attempt to explain the junction.

Mandragora, mandrake, man-dragon?

According to Wiktionary, one definition of mandrake or mandragora is "a kind of tiny dragon immune to fire." Ostensibly this is because mandrake may be falsely analyzed as a compound of man and drake. Wiktionary provides no source for this definition so I used Google Books to find where this etymology came from...

D&D aberrations, celestials, fiends, etc in a Moorcockian context

D&D took the chaos/order alignment trope from Moorcock and then added good/evil onto it, even though this is unnecessary. I decided to go back to the original Moorcockian model for my setting, but this means that the various monsters like aberrations, celestials and fiends need to be re-contextualized.

For those who are not experts on Moorcock's multiverse, the epic conflict is between law and chaos. Neutrality is a law because it demands a balance between law and chaos. Chaos rejects this because it is chaos, and law decides to enforce the balance. At some point law goes overboard and decides the only way to preserve the balance is to destroy chaos, which violates the balance in the other direction.

This conflict is fairly easy to understand but is at odds with the conventional D&D alignment system, which has law/chaos playing second fiddle to good/evil. The Moorcockian alignment system doesn't define good or evil in cosmology terms, except insofar as imbalance is evil because it is anathema to life.

The typical terminology for the Moorcock alignments is lawful, chaotic and neutral, but this terminology is inaccurate since it neglects the subtleties I mentioned previously. In a world where chaos is ascendant, there is little functional difference between law and neutrality; in a world where law is ascendant, the reverse is true. The generic fantasy setting is the former, and the characters are nominally associated with law/neutrality. This isn't to say that harmful manifestations of law cannot appear in a world where chaos is ascendant, but it is vastly less common than harmful manifestations of chaos.

The various spiritual entities would have different alignment associations compared to the standard.

• Aberrations would represent chaos, full stop. While different groups of aberrations might behave in a seemingly lawful manner, that is due to chaos' inherent tendency toward diversity.
• Celestials would represent balance, law and neutrality. They are active in that they actively fight for the balance.
• Elementals represent neutrality in its purest form. They are generally reactive to imbalances, and actively maintain conditions suitable to life (e.g. the weather).
• Fey would represent chaos, but to distinguish them from aberrations they are tempered by the presence of neutrality and law.
• Fiends would represent any kind of imbalance, whether toward law or chaos.

Autochthones and Gegenoi

In Greek myth, the giants and other races were spawned by Gaia. There are even a few different names for this: autochthones, gegenees, spartoi. 13th Age borrows this same concept to explain where its depiction of orcs come from: they spring fully-formed and holding weapons from gashes in the earth, then go forth to destroy civilization as Gaia demands. This concept is really useful because it sidesteps having to worry about things like orc non-combatants and so forth. So I would like to apply that concept to most monsters, at least the humanoids, beastmen and so forth that parties are typically expected to slaughter as a matter of course.